Back at work, Aubrey called Jennifer into her office.
“Sit down, Jennifer, I have some news.”
“Good or bad?” Jennifer didn’t read the local paper, and she didn’t know anyone in Aubrey’s social circle, so she was in the dark about Foster.
“I’ve decided to close the office for a while, Jennifer.”
“What?” Jennifer felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“A lot is going on…”
“Like what?”
“For one thing, Foster and I are getting a divorce.”
Jennifer decided to be bold. “Is this about his sexual assault on Hope? You know, Ian’s ex-wife?”
It was Aubrey’s turn to be shocked. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” What had Foster done now?
“He went to see Hope stripping. I don’t think he knew who she was. But she knew him. Through Ian. At the country club.”
Oh God. Aubrey forgot that Ian and Hope had been to the country club together. Hope was the epitome of the blonde-haired bombshell. The attraction must have been immediate.
“How did you meet Hope, Jennifer?” Fuck, how deep did this go?
She lives in the Luxor across the street from me. One day, I was walking home when I saw Foster attacking her. I went over to help, but Foster was furious. He stormed off, and I went up to Hope’s apartment to see if she was okay. She told me everything about Foster stalking her.
“Oh, God, Jennifer, then you know about Foster?”
“I know some, but is there more?”
“Much more. He also attacked a girl named Hollis. The blonde who was his secretary…and do you remember Jake Andrews? They were dating, and Foster attacked them when they were together. Apparently, Foster has a thing for blondes. He sexually assaulted Hollis while she was working for him.”
“Why blondes?”
“It turns out that his dead wife was blonde, and he never got over her. He married me because he thought we looked good together. I was also young and naïve. Maybe that’s why I married him, too. Anyway, it’s over. We’re getting a divorce.”
“Wait a minute,” Jennifer said. “A dead wife? Did you know about her?”
“No,” Aubrey said, “I didn’t. Not the dead part, anyway.”
“Oh no. I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine how you must be feeling.”
“Foster’s wife died under mysterious circumstances,” Aubrey continued. “It was a drowning. There were no charges filed, but Foster was there. He must feel terrible guilt, and God knows what else.”
“That explains a lot. I guess you can’t treat patients in your mental state.”
“No, but more importantly, Ian Henshaw Senior heard about it and yanked the funding from my study. He figured I had no idea how to run a practice like this when my own husband was a deviant. Even Ian couldn’t save it.”
“Ian, that’s right. I guess you won’t be treating him anymore.”
“No, but that’s okay. I’m seeing Ian now.”
“Dr. Prentice?” Jennifer was stunned by all this information, but she couldn’t wait to hear more. “What do you mean, dating?”
“You know I was fond of him, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was married, and he was a patient. But as I am no longer married and he is no longer under my care, he asked me out, and I accepted.”
Jennifer was beside herself.
“Where did you go? What did you do?”
“We’ve been to restaurants, you know, the usual stuff.”
“Have you slept with him? You must have.”
“Yes, we’ve slept together…”
“How was it?”
“As incredible as you might think.”
“Wow,” Jennifer paused to let everything sink in.
Now that Aubrey had said everything out loud, it all crystallized. The situation was real. Palpable. Frightening.
But was it manageable?
Jennifer spoke first. “So, Dr. Prentice, what are you going to do now?
“Take some time off. I’ll give you a nice severance package, Jennifer. And you can call me Aubrey now. I think we know each other well enough.”
“Ok, Aubrey,” Jennifer said, trying it out. “What does time off look like?”
“It looks like I’m going to be writing my book. And now that I think about it, I could use some help if you’d be interested.”
“Yeah, sure,” said Jennifer. “What’s the book about, in light of all these new developments?”
“I have a great idea. Now that I have a personal experience with the very conditions I’ve been treating, it’s going to be a sensational book about how I overcame adversity in my own life. And the case files will illustrate what other women should look for if they think their husband is a pervert.”
Jennifer laughed. “That sounds like a bestseller.”
“I hope so. Will you help me organize the files so they fit into my outline?”
“No problem, but you have to tell me more about Ian,” Jennifer said.
“Okay. But first, I want to know about Hope. What else did you two talk about?” Aubrey was fishing for information that might give her some insight into Ian’s life outside of therapy.
“Foster gave her enough money so she could live comfortably. The Luxor is exclusive. So I imagine that comfortable for her is expensive. She’s dating someone new, a rich British guy, although he’s not as wealthy as Ian. She seems happy with Ian out of her life. Much more relaxed.”
Aubrey was thinking out loud. “I wonder who she snagged now. She’s already had encounters with two of the men in my life. I hope a third one doesn’t surface.”
“Actually, I know a third one that I’m dating, but that doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Jennifer said with a smile.
Aubrey was intrigued. “How could you possibly know anyone Hope would date? And what happened to Garson?”
It was Jennifer’s turn to spill.
I broke up with Garson because he wanted me to quit going to school and marry him. Then he wanted kids. He was planning to buy me a house now that he has an MBA and works at his father’s holdings company. Can you imagine? Then he shows up unexpectedly at a café and introduces me to his new fiancée. Vaughn and I had a good laugh.
“Vaughn? Is that your new boyfriend’s name?”
“Yes, and that’s how I know Vaughn. He tends bar at The Ascot, which is the local hangout in my neighborhood. Hope used to go there to drown her sorrows and started dating Vaughn to escape from Ian. Ian caught the two of them cheating and threw Hope out. I met Vaughn when I saw Hope at the bar, begging him to take her away from Ian.”
“This has become a fucking social circle game,” Aubrey said. “I didn’t realize until now that all of our lives were so intertwined. This makes my book even more fascinating.”
“It sure does.” Now, Jennifer’s mind was working on ideas.
“So you can see why I need your help with the book,” said Aubrey. “You are almost as involved as I am.”
“It seems so. Do you have a title yet?”
“Not yet, but I will, once I get organized. But there’s a chapter I can’t write yet and an ending I can’t finish.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I’m still dating Ian.”
“How is that going?”
“I don’t know. He’s passionate, but possessive. He’s generous, but there are always strings attached. And I feel like I’m just an accessory to his lifestyle. The missing piece of his puzzle. I can see how abusive he was to Hope now. If I could talk to her—”
“Put that thought out of your head, Aubrey. She’s still laughing about the fact that she got her revenge when Foster walked in the doors of the Platinum Club and asked her for a lap dance.”
“Of course.”
“And unless I see her on the street, I’m not going to talk to her again,” Jennifer said.
“If you do, it would be good for the book,” Aubrey said. “Although I have a lot of notes on her from Ian. She might give an interview if she thought she was getting back at him.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Jennifer. “So you think there is a dark side to Ian?”
“I know there’s a dark side to Ian. On one of our dates, he bought me a new dress and a diamond necklace I could never afford. Then he ordered dinner for me right down to the dessert. The problem is, back at his penthouse in Scarsdale, we had the best sex I’ve had in a long time.”
“You only have Foster as a comparison.”
“True, but it was still so passionate. Ian is controlling yet generous at the same time. I’m too close to it to sort it out objectively. And Ian gives out such mixed messages.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Aubrey had no immediate answer. She looked around her office, a place that held no more meaning for her. The place where she had formally introduced herself to Ian Henshaw III. Now her office, once her seat of power, was just a desk and a few chairs.
“I’m going to slow it down,” she said finally. “With Ian. With everything.”
“You? With a life that has moved at such a fast pace, it would make anyone’s head spin.”
“I know,” Aubrey said. “But I’ve learned something here. I need to make proactive decisions. I’ve spent my entire adult life reacting—being the good wife, the composed doctor, the woman who keeps things from getting messy. I have lived for everyone but myself.”
“So what’s going to change?”
“I’m not going to live in servitude anymore. Ian lives in intensity. So can I. He thrives on it. And so can I. And part of me is drawn to that because it feels alive. But another part of me recognizes the pattern.”
“What pattern?”
“The one where I disappear,” Aubrey said. “Where I become the solution to someone else’s problem instead of the author of my own life.”
“But you are becoming the author of your own life,” Jennifer said. “Literally. I mean, you’ve chosen to write about your life instead of just existing in it. That has to give you more control over what happens.”
“Exactly. I want to see who Ian is when I don’t accept the gifts, when I don’t step neatly into the role he’s imagined for me. When I say no and mean it.” She paused. “And I want to see who I am without a husband, without patients, without pretending I have everything under control.”
Jennifer smiled. “That actually sounds healthy.”
“It does, doesn’t it? I feel like a new person. I have a future to look forward to, instead of a future I dread.”
She glanced around the office one last time, the place where it all started. Her fledgling practice that she couldn’t build without the help of Ian Henshaw Senior’s money.
A man’s money.
The place where she hid behind a title while her own life was falling apart.
Caused by a man’s failures.
She was glad to say goodbye.
“The book will help,” she continued. “It gives me a voice. It gives me the power to write my own ending.”
“And Ian?” Jennifer asked.
Aubrey considered the question carefully. “Ian will be reduced to a chapter. Maybe an important one. Maybe even a love story. But I’m not letting him be the ending until I’m sure it’s not just another trap of my own making.”
Jennifer stood. “That sounds like the voice of an author who is writing a bestselling book.”
Aubrey smiled, feeling something settle inside her, not certainty, but resolve.
She was choosing.
Whatever came next, with Ian, with the book, with herself, would be written on her terms.